[tor-dev] Understanding bwauth data in Stem?

[Sebastian Hahn]

Hi there,

On 21 Nov 2014, at 23:44, Damian Johnson <atagar at torproject.org> wrote:
>> In other words, if I sorted the descriptors by "measured" value, what would
>> that order mean?
> 
> I *think* that would be the ordering of 'relays who receive the most tor
> client traffic due to having a more highly weighted heuristic for relay
> selection'.

that would be accurate, is my understanding

> That said, this is an area I'm honestly not that familiar. I'm looping in
> Sebastian, Karsten, and Roger. As mentioned on irc Sebastian has touched the
> Bandwidth Authorities most recently, so he's likely the most knowledgeable at
> present about this space.

I've tried fixing stuff and have mostly given up. I'm not too familiar with
it, and probably can't help too much. I'll try to answer questions if there
are any, tho.

>> Separately, is there a way (using Stem or some other tool) to see the raw
>> bwauth measurements rather than the weights?
> 
> I don't believe this is exposed anywhere, so only the bandwidth authority
> operators have this. And by 'have' I mean 'maybe in their logs, or possibly
> not even surfaced at all'.

We could publish those. Let's ask karsten if he thinks that'd be worthwhile?

>> Is that a calculation I can reverse?
> 
> Maybe run a bandwidth authority of your own? This could be a terrible idea.
> Sebastian would know.

You can look at the votes before a consensus was formed, they'll continue the
values for each measuring bwauth. Running your own bwauth might be interesting,
but it's probably not very useful if you want to learn values for the
deployed network.

Cheers
Sebastian